Book - The 7 habits of highly effective people.
INTRODUCTION
What is a highly effective person? A highly effective person is someone who has a good character. He is someone who has strong values. Have you experienced being in conflict with a relative or a workmate? Before trying to change others, you must start with yourself. Do you think you have qualities that you can improve?
A highly effective person is also someone who has good relationship with other people. He maintains harmony with his family, relatives, friends, neighbors' and workmates. This good relationship can last for a long time.
By reading this book, you will learn how to be highly effective. Whatever your job is, you will learn from this book. If you are a parent, you can learn something to have a better relationship with your child. If you are a boss, you can learn a few tips on how to be a better leader.
When you have a good character, people would want to be near you. That is what makes "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" an International Bestseller. This book focuses on improving character. Most books out there will tell you how to win friends or how to make people follow. But 7 Habits focuses on the individual first.
If you have a good personality, that will make you an effective person but only for a short time. People will soon realize that you have a motive behind your actions. But if you have a good character, that will last a lifetime. You can influence the people around you without noticing it.
Remember that you must start from inside out. You must start with yourself first. Are you ready to make the change? Are you ready to become a highly effective person today?
A highly effective person is also someone who has good relationship with other people. He maintains harmony with his family, relatives, friends, neighbors' and workmates. This good relationship can last for a long time.
By reading this book, you will learn how to be highly effective. Whatever your job is, you will learn from this book. If you are a parent, you can learn something to have a better relationship with your child. If you are a boss, you can learn a few tips on how to be a better leader.
When you have a good character, people would want to be near you. That is what makes "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" an International Bestseller. This book focuses on improving character. Most books out there will tell you how to win friends or how to make people follow. But 7 Habits focuses on the individual first.
If you have a good personality, that will make you an effective person but only for a short time. People will soon realize that you have a motive behind your actions. But if you have a good character, that will last a lifetime. You can influence the people around you without noticing it.
Remember that you must start from inside out. You must start with yourself first. Are you ready to make the change? Are you ready to become a highly effective person today?
Habit 1: Be Proactive
The first and most fundamental habit of an effective person is to be proactive. More than just taking the initiative, being proactive means taking responsibility for your life. Consequently, you don’t blame your behavior on external factors such as circumstances, but own it as part of a conscious choice based on your values. Where reactive people are driven by feelings, proactive people are driven by values.
While external factors have the ability to cause pain, your inner character doesn’t need to be damaged. What matters most is how you respond to these experiences. Proactive individuals focus their efforts on the things they can change, whereas reactive people focus their efforts on the areas of their lives in which they have no control. They amass negative energy by blaming external factors for their feelings of victimization. This, in turn, empowers other forces to perpetually control them.
The clearest manifestation of proactivity can be seen in your ability to stick to the commitments you make to yourself and to others. This includes a commitment to self-improvement and, by extension, personal growth. By setting small goals and sticking to them, you gradually increase your integrity, which increases your ability to take responsibility for your life. Covey suggests undertaking a 30-day proactivity test in which you make a series of small commitments and stick to them. Observe how this changes your sense of self.
Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind
To better understand this habit, Covey invites you to imagine your funeral. He asks you to think how you would like your loved ones to remember you, what you would like them to acknowledge as your achievements, and to consider what a difference you made in their lives. Engaging in this thought experiment helps you identify some of your key values that should underpin your behavior.
Accordingly, each day of your life should contribute to the vision you have for your life as a whole. Knowing what is important to you means you can live your life in service of what matters most. Habit two involves identifying old scripts that are taking you away from what matters most, and writing new ones that are congruent with your deepest values. This means that, when challenges arise, you can meet them proactively and with integrity, as your values are clear.
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Time Management is Life Management: Put Your Life Priorities First
Habit three is all about prioritization.
If you follow the steps of Habit 1 and 2 then you have your values and life goal very clear.
This means you know what are your priorities.. And which are not.
Basically, your first and major prioritization is through the filter of your life goals.
Once you have a burning desire to become and do what you want your yeses will also clearly show what are your nos. That’s the bedrock of prioritization.
The Time Quadrant
Covey introduces here the now-famous time quadrant.
To effectively manage your time you should spend most of your time on non-urgent and important tasks.
This way you will rarely have to deal with urgent and important tasks, which heighten your stress and often deliver sub-par results.
Habit 4: Think Win / Win
Covey says that win/win is a character-based approach to human interactions.
To achieve this level, you must first acquire three essential character traits:
Integrity (sticking with who you are: feelings, values)Maturity (expressing your ideas and feelings with a balance of courage and consideration)Abundance mentality (life is no zero-sum, there’s plenty for all)
I particularly liked that the author stresses the importance of integrity in the sense of aligning yourself with your public actions.
That’s indeed a great way to acquire personal confidence and self-esteem.
The author says most people think in terms of either/or: it’s either you’re nice (and a pushover) or you’re tough (and get your own way).
This is what Brene Brown calls Viking or Victim mentality in Daring Greatly.
Maturity instead is that happy balance in between.
It requires you to be empathic and confident, considerate and brave, all at the same time.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be
Understood
Communication is one of the most important skills in life. But most people never learned how to listen. Most people try to be understood first. They want to bring their point across so badly that they often ignore completely what the other person has to say or filter out selectively hear only the parts they want to hear, misunderstanding the true meaning. Why does that happen?
Because most people listen with the intention to reply, not to understand.
You can’t come up with a solution before making a diagnose. To understand others (making a diagnose) you have to listen carefully and with empathy first. Then bring up a solution.
If you listen with the intention to reply you’re doing it wrong. Here is one example if a mom who listens with the intention to reply, that is, with a prescription before making a diagnose.
Mom: “Honey, tell me why you feel bad, I know it’s hard but I’ll try to understand.”
Daughter: “I’m not sure Mom. You will think it is stupid.”
Mom: “Oh come one, no one cares for you as much as I do, you can tell me.”
Daughter: “Well you know, I don’t really like school anymore.”
Mom: “WHAT?? After all the sacrifices we’ve made for you? We’ve given you everything necessary to succeed, and you just don’t value it! If you’d study as your older sister does, you’d be ok. Change your attitude and try harder!”
In this case, Mom didn’t even get to the WHY of her daughter, she came up with a premature “solution” which will probably not help at all.
As you learn to listen with empathy, you will learn that there are enormous differences in our perception. We see the world through different paradigms. Our paradigms are like lenses, they define how we see the world. We think that our paradigms are the right ones and see them as facts, questioning, blaming, challenging everyone who “can’t see the facts.”
This type of thinking cannot bring us closer to win-win situations. When the other person comes from a different paradigm, it is crucial to transcend our individual perceptions, seeking first to understand. Once we understand at a deeper level, we open the door to creative solutions.
To better understand how a thorough understanding helps in “win-win” negotiations check out “You can Negotiate Anything.”
Habit 6: Synergize.
Synergy means that two heads are better than one. It represents teamwork, open-mindedness, and creativity. Synergy leads to join discoveries which would be much harder to accomplish individually. Each individual gains new and deeper insights through the interaction with others.
The whole is more than the sum of the parts. The interaction and differences between the distinct parts brings exponential growth and results. Shared resources also compensate for individual weaknesses.
Do you value differences among people or do you wish they would all just agree with you? Don’t mistake uniformity for unity and sameness with oneness. Strength can rise out of differences. See differences as the zest of your life.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
Sharpen your saw means improving the greatest asset you have, yourself.
Spend some time to improve (sharpen) yourself in the four areas of your life every day.
- Physical: Healthy diet, exercise and enough rest.
- Spiritual: Read, listen to music, meditate, spend time in Nature, serve.
- Mental: Read, write, organize and make plans, teach.
- Social/emotional: Learn to understand others, serve others, volunteer.
Without working on these main areas of yourself, you will stagnate, your saw will get blunt.
Be proactive, sharpen your saw each day.
The first and most fundamental habit of an effective person is to be proactive. More than just taking the initiative, being proactive means taking responsibility for your life. Consequently, you don’t blame your behavior on external factors such as circumstances, but own it as part of a conscious choice based on your values. Where reactive people are driven by feelings, proactive people are driven by values.
While external factors have the ability to cause pain, your inner character doesn’t need to be damaged. What matters most is how you respond to these experiences. Proactive individuals focus their efforts on the things they can change, whereas reactive people focus their efforts on the areas of their lives in which they have no control. They amass negative energy by blaming external factors for their feelings of victimization. This, in turn, empowers other forces to perpetually control them.
The clearest manifestation of proactivity can be seen in your ability to stick to the commitments you make to yourself and to others. This includes a commitment to self-improvement and, by extension, personal growth. By setting small goals and sticking to them, you gradually increase your integrity, which increases your ability to take responsibility for your life. Covey suggests undertaking a 30-day proactivity test in which you make a series of small commitments and stick to them. Observe how this changes your sense of self.
Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind
To better understand this habit, Covey invites you to imagine your funeral. He asks you to think how you would like your loved ones to remember you, what you would like them to acknowledge as your achievements, and to consider what a difference you made in their lives. Engaging in this thought experiment helps you identify some of your key values that should underpin your behavior.
Accordingly, each day of your life should contribute to the vision you have for your life as a whole. Knowing what is important to you means you can live your life in service of what matters most. Habit two involves identifying old scripts that are taking you away from what matters most, and writing new ones that are congruent with your deepest values. This means that, when challenges arise, you can meet them proactively and with integrity, as your values are clear.
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Time Management is Life Management: Put Your Life Priorities First
Habit three is all about prioritization.
If you follow the steps of Habit 1 and 2 then you have your values and life goal very clear.
This means you know what are your priorities.. And which are not.
Basically, your first and major prioritization is through the filter of your life goals.
Once you have a burning desire to become and do what you want your yeses will also clearly show what are your nos. That’s the bedrock of prioritization.
The Time Quadrant
Covey introduces here the now-famous time quadrant.
To effectively manage your time you should spend most of your time on non-urgent and important tasks.
This way you will rarely have to deal with urgent and important tasks, which heighten your stress and often deliver sub-par results.
Habit 4: Think Win / Win
Covey says that win/win is a character-based approach to human interactions.
To achieve this level, you must first acquire three essential character traits:
Integrity (sticking with who you are: feelings, values)Maturity (expressing your ideas and feelings with a balance of courage and consideration)Abundance mentality (life is no zero-sum, there’s plenty for all)
I particularly liked that the author stresses the importance of integrity in the sense of aligning yourself with your public actions.
That’s indeed a great way to acquire personal confidence and self-esteem.
The author says most people think in terms of either/or: it’s either you’re nice (and a pushover) or you’re tough (and get your own way).
This is what Brene Brown calls Viking or Victim mentality in Daring Greatly.
Maturity instead is that happy balance in between.
It requires you to be empathic and confident, considerate and brave, all at the same time.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be
Understood
Communication is one of the most important skills in life. But most people never learned how to listen. Most people try to be understood first. They want to bring their point across so badly that they often ignore completely what the other person has to say or filter out selectively hear only the parts they want to hear, misunderstanding the true meaning. Why does that happen?
Because most people listen with the intention to reply, not to understand.
You can’t come up with a solution before making a diagnose. To understand others (making a diagnose) you have to listen carefully and with empathy first. Then bring up a solution.
If you listen with the intention to reply you’re doing it wrong. Here is one example if a mom who listens with the intention to reply, that is, with a prescription before making a diagnose.
Mom: “Honey, tell me why you feel bad, I know it’s hard but I’ll try to understand.”
Daughter: “I’m not sure Mom. You will think it is stupid.”
Mom: “Oh come one, no one cares for you as much as I do, you can tell me.”
Daughter: “Well you know, I don’t really like school anymore.”
Mom: “WHAT?? After all the sacrifices we’ve made for you? We’ve given you everything necessary to succeed, and you just don’t value it! If you’d study as your older sister does, you’d be ok. Change your attitude and try harder!”
In this case, Mom didn’t even get to the WHY of her daughter, she came up with a premature “solution” which will probably not help at all.
As you learn to listen with empathy, you will learn that there are enormous differences in our perception. We see the world through different paradigms. Our paradigms are like lenses, they define how we see the world. We think that our paradigms are the right ones and see them as facts, questioning, blaming, challenging everyone who “can’t see the facts.”
This type of thinking cannot bring us closer to win-win situations. When the other person comes from a different paradigm, it is crucial to transcend our individual perceptions, seeking first to understand. Once we understand at a deeper level, we open the door to creative solutions.
To better understand how a thorough understanding helps in “win-win” negotiations check out “You can Negotiate Anything.”
Habit 6: Synergize.
Synergy means that two heads are better than one. It represents teamwork, open-mindedness, and creativity. Synergy leads to join discoveries which would be much harder to accomplish individually. Each individual gains new and deeper insights through the interaction with others.
The whole is more than the sum of the parts. The interaction and differences between the distinct parts brings exponential growth and results. Shared resources also compensate for individual weaknesses.
Do you value differences among people or do you wish they would all just agree with you? Don’t mistake uniformity for unity and sameness with oneness. Strength can rise out of differences. See differences as the zest of your life.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
Sharpen your saw means improving the greatest asset you have, yourself.
Spend some time to improve (sharpen) yourself in the four areas of your life every day.
- Physical: Healthy diet, exercise and enough rest.
- Spiritual: Read, listen to music, meditate, spend time in Nature, serve.
- Mental: Read, write, organize and make plans, teach.
- Social/emotional: Learn to understand others, serve others, volunteer.
Without working on these main areas of yourself, you will stagnate, your saw will get blunt.
Be proactive, sharpen your saw each day.
About the Author
Stephen Richards Covey (October 24, 1932 – July 16, 2012) was an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. His most popular book is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His other books include First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, The 8th Habit, and The Leader In Me — How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time. In 1996, Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential people. He was a professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University at the time of his death.
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